Echos
by brookeAp3
Summary: It starts as faint brushes, passes of a feeling that are so fleeting Regina doesn't believe they are real. Though it isn't long before she can no longer deny what's happening or the signs that Robin is reaching out.


**A/N: For day 3 of OQ Fix It Week! Quest to get Robin back.**

It starts as faint brushes, passes of a feeling that are so fleeting Regina doesn't believe they are real. Perhaps she's imagined them, her grief such a force to be reckoned with that she's manifesting a person that's not really there.

He's gone. Dead.

Just like nearly every other person she's ever loved.

Without even an ounce of hope they can make a return trip to the Underworld to save him as they'd done with Captain Guyliner. Not that it's surprising. For why should Regina get to secure her happy ending the way Emma has when every event and occurrence in her life has drilled the opposite into her? It just figures that as soon as she's found herself with a man that loves her and a supporting family despite all the odds stacked against her, that her soulmate is ripped away from her.

Love is weakness, after all.

Except for the echos that haunt her. They keep the spark of hope, that feels eerily like the brush of Robin's fingertips over her skin, alive and whisper across the far reaches of her mind that perhaps it's strength. That maybe the love she had with him was powerful enough.

As days turn into weeks, the faint sensation of digits stroking through her hair, the warm press of a palm to the small of her back, or a hand brushing down her bicep grow more and more frequent. Gaining an increasingly corporeal presence as time passes. They are no longer something she can ignore are happening.

It seems impossible. According to the wretched Hades, his soul had been obliterated. There's absolutely no way that Robin could be trying to contact her in some way. Still, there's a voice in the back of her mind (one that sounds suspiciously like Snow's) that whispers to have hope when she's lying in their cold, empty bed. Images of a drifting feather in their wake haunting her.

Regina shifts, turning onto her side and sweeping a hand over the cool sheets beside her, drawing the pillow that still carries the faint scent of pine and dirt to her chest and burying her face in it. One of the few remaining comforts to her in the wake of his absence.

Quietly, voice nothing more than a breathless whisper, Regina murmurs, "Robin?"

There it is. That tingle over her skin, the hair on her arms standing straight up as she feels a warm rush and the phantom touch of a kiss on her neck, just where Robin had been inclined to place them. A single, lone tear falls from her eye, sliding slowly down her cheek to land on the cotton cover of Robin's pillow.

She can't be imagining it. Surely, it's crazy. Insanity. But Regina can no longer deny what she's experiencing, not when every fiber of her being is aching with the loss of her soulmate. If there is a chance, even a miniscule one, that Robin isn't entirely gone she has to explore it. She owes it to herself and she owes it to Robin. To honor that sacrifice he'd made for her.

Some will judge her for it. Images of holding onto Daniel, preserving his body, tracking down Whale, her desperation to bring him back to life, run rampant through her mind, twisting the knife of grief deeper into her gut.

More echoes.

But this time is different. She's grown, matured. Through all her years of vengence, Regina's gained wisdom and clarity. Even as difficult as it had been, she'd buried Robin, had comforted his son as he'd sobbed in her arms, let her own tears stain her linens, and been prepared to move on.

Until she'd felt his presence, that is, and now the prospect of healing and letting go doesn't seem nearly as feasible. That tiny bubble of hope swelling inside her heart. She's not making it up. And to hell with anyone who stands in her way if there's a chance to get her soulmate back.

"I will find you." She whispers into the stillness of the night, conviction laced through her tone.

For no matter what it takes, what price she has to pay, they are two souls forever connected through fate and love and pixie dust. They are destined to come together and lose each other over and over again it seems, but tethered to one another they are.

It seems even death cannot part them.

Regina feels the light press of his lips to her temple in response to her promise and for the first time in weeks the corners of her mouth tip up in a genuine smile.


End file.
